1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mobile device user traffic patterns and, more particularly, to directing advertising to mobile device users corresponding to predicted future destinations of the mobile device users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile phones have gone from being rare and expensive pieces of equipment used primarily by the business elite, to a pervasive low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile phones now outnumber land-line telephones, with most adults and many children now owning mobile phones. In the United States, 50% of children own mobile phones. It is not uncommon for people to simply own a mobile phone instead of a land-line for their residence. In some developing countries there is little existing fixed-line infrastructure and consequently mobile phone use has become widespread. In general, a mobile or cellular telephone is a long-range, portable electronic device for personal telecommunications over long (or short) distances. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception are satellite phones).
With high levels of mobile telephone penetration, a mobile culture has evolved, where the phone becomes a key social tool, and people rely on their mobile phone address book to keep in touch with their friends. Many phones offer text-messaging services to increase the simplicity and ease of texting on phones. Many people keep in touch using text messaging, such as SMS, and a whole culture of “texting” has developed from this.
Traditionally, commercial advertising has been concerned with attempting to get the most consumers as possible to see the particular advertisement. Various media have been used for advertising over the years, such as, billboards, printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, web popups, magazines, newspapers, and even the sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof mounts. Advertisers generally must select a static location at which to place their advertisement and hope that consumers happen upon them.
Recently modern mobile phones or other mobile devices may be located either by cell-signal triangulation or through Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) tracking. In general, mobile device service providers are increasingly required to provide positioning information to support emergency services. When using cell-signal triangulation, mobile device users can be tracked at all times regardless of whether a cell call is underway. This is because the mobile device performs a periodic connectivity check to the service provider. This check registers the device relative to cell towers.